A Quiz: "Katharine Graham, Dangerous Radical" Edition

It is correct that Americans do not always understand the ways and customs of the British, but the opposite is occasionally true. Consider the negative description of Katharine Graham in The House of Mitford, written by Diana (Mitford) Mosley's son and granddaughter, Jonathan and Catherine Guinness. They erroneously label Graham as a member of the far left, writing that her newspaper, the Washington Post, "played a vital part in preparing the American public for the abandonment of Indochina to Communism as well as exploiting the Watergate burglary to hound President Nixon out of office.” 

As most Americans have long been aware, Graham was hardly a revolutionary. She was mainstream, albeit swimming nearer to the left bank than the right. It is true when she published the Pentagon Papers, she played a pivotal role in alerting the American public what the military command had long known: the Vietnam War was un-winnable. However, it speaks volumes that in deciding to publish, she went against one of her closest friends, Robert S. McNamara. He, as Secretary of Defense, was the very person directing American military involvement in Vietnam. Yet, he forgave her and, several decades hence, was a pallbearer at her funeral. The truth was that she socialized with and was held in high regard by politicians on both sides of the aisle.

Katharine Graham Greeting Ronald and Nancy Reagan

A case in point was Graham's warm relationship with Ronald and Nancy Reagan. Their friendship began long before the Reagans moved to Washington, D.C. It originated when he was governor of California when a friend of Graham's visited Mrs. Reagan in Sacramento and realized she and Graham would get along quite well. Who was that friend?

• Joan Didion
• Jessica Mitford
• Truman Capote
• Gore Vidal

HINT: One of the above choices waspishly quipped that Nancy Reagan was "born with a silver ladder in her hand," but much later, through Betsy Bloomingdale, became friendly with her. That person is not the correct answer. 

​The answer is after the JUMP.

It was not Joan Didion, who once wrote a unflattering profile of Mrs. Reagan. It was not Gore Vidal. He was the acerbic wit behind the "silver ladder" put-down, but in his geriatric years, discovered he liked Mrs. Reagan very much, describing her as "funny, smart, and excellent company." Nor was it Jessica Mitford, who was one of the family members whom the Guinnesses wrote about in The House of Mitford. Jessica Mitford and Katharine Graham were longtime friends, having met in 1940, shortly after Jessica immigrated to the United States.

Truman Capote with the Guest of Honor at His Black and White Ball, Kay Graham; Photograph by Cecil Beaton

The correct answer is social gadabout Truman Capote. He encouraged the friendship between Katharine Graham and Nancy Reagan. In 1998, Graham related to Reagan biographer Bob Colacello how she and and Mrs Reagan became friends:

I must say, we kept this rather a dark secret. Because what we actually did was meet through Truman Capote. And both of us felt slightly embarrassed—you know, because people kept asking all through the Reagan years, "How did you happen to meet? How did you happen to be friends?" And at that point, for some reason, we didn’t think it was suitable. I don’t know exactly why. But we never much said that in fact we did meet through [Truman] Capote. After In Cold Blood he was very interested in the death penalty, and he had gone out to California in pursuit of death row interviews. In the course of doing that he met Governor and Mrs. Reagan. He said to me, "I know you won’t believe me honey, but you’d really like them’ and encouraged me to look them up.

Katharine Graham was portrayed by Meryl Streep in the Steven Spielberg-directed, Oscar-nominated film, The Post.

Image Credit: Personal History